Could Hawk Mountain become Pennsylvania's next national park? / Illustration by Melissa McFeeters

Last May, I found myself sweaty and sticky in a hot Southern swamp, questioning my choices.

Four years had gone by since my wife and I -- avid visitors of America's national parks -- had actually visited one. Throughout much of our 20s and early 30s, nearly once a year we embarked to Maine, Utah, Colorado, and other distant points to see the grand wonders: Acadia, Zion, Rocky Mountain. In March 2020 we got engaged on a mountain peak in Saguaro National Park near Tucson, Arizona. In total I've been to 16 of our national parks.

But after we were waylaid by the pandemic and then parenthood, our little scratch-off map of the country's 62 national parks sat unscratched and dusty in the corner of our living room. Actually, a 63rd was added when New River Gorge in West Virginia slipped into existence in 2021. Stasis I can handle, but losing ground hurt.

So I studied our map and checked airline prices, and a winning ticket emerged: Congaree National Park in South Carolina could be reached via a toddler-nap-length plane ride and another nap-length drive. We packed our bags, hit the tarmac, and made our way to the nation's 51st-most visited national park, smack dab in the middle of the Palmetto State.

The park was ... fine. A two-mile, stroller-friendly boardwalk loop winds through an interesting ecosystem. There are alligators. The famous nighttime firefly display is cool. But while walking the loop, I couldn't help but count off the places in Pennsylvania that felt at least as deserving to me: the thick woodlands of Allegheny National Forest, the serene shoreline of Lake Erie, the rollicking waters of the upper Delaware River, and the dramatic landscapes of Appalachia cutting across the state.

Our state's rich natural bounty is even famously baked right into the name, Penn's Woods. It feels borderline insulting that we don't have a national park. So I decided to see what would happen if I proposed one myself.

Any of those aforementioned landscapes would be a good candidate, but my gaze drifted to Hawk Mountain, a beautiful piece of Appalachian ridgeline 90 minutes northwest of Philadelphia. A Berks County native, I've been visiting the mountain since I was a Boy Scout, and it's long been my favorite natural place. Hawk has a wealth of natural and cultural assets worthy of a national park, to be enumerated in due course.

But perhaps its biggest draw is location. Not only would Hawk Mountain place a national park right in Philadelphia's back yard, it would also be easily reachable by folks from New York City, Baltimore, and D.C. It would nestle nicely in an existing 800-mile gap between Acadia National Park in coastal Maine and Shenandoah in Virginia's rural Blue Ridge Mountains. And should a planned train line from Philly to Reading come to fruition in the years ahead, it would easily connect city dwellers and suburbanites alike to a magnificent natural landscape.

Over the past few months, I shared this idea with anyone who would listen -- federal and state officials, local politicians, environmental groups, strangers -- just to see what they'd say. The issue is complicated here in Pennsylvania, where a proposal to turn the Delaware Water Gap into a national park has met fierce local resistance over the past several years.

But initial feedback was positive. One Environmental Protection Agency employee I texted responded simply, "Who could possibly say no?"

Sean Grace is the gregarious president of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, a private nonprofit that has worked to protect raptors of all kinds on its majestic mountaintop spanning Berks and Schuylkill counties for close to a century now. He has impossible shoes to fill. The sanctuary's founding leader was Rosalie Edge, an indomitable suffragist who, upon learning that hunters were killing raptors by the thousands on the mountain (and that her male peers in the conservation movement weren't doing much about it), began snatching up acreage herself in the early 1930s to put a stop to the slaughter, forming the world's first refuge for raptors.

And 90 years later, Hawk has the look of a place that Edge would likely still approve of. Over the decades, the sanctuary has accumulated some 2,600 acres along the Kittatinny Ridge, the first Appalachian ridgeline one encounters when heading north in Pennsylvania into the mountains. Scientists there conduct world-renowned research as thousands of raptors make their annual pilgrimages north in the spring and south in the fall. Khaki-clad program staff welcome tens of thousands of human visitors a year to hike the trail system, visit scenic overlooks, and see birds of prey up close in the sanctuary's visitor center. The place frankly already has a vibe that would feel familiar to regular visitors of national parks. And during a phone call in August, Grace didn't dismiss the idea outright, saying it would be unlikely to ever happen but that it's always worth thinking about ways to increase public interest in natural lands.

"I think on a societal level, there's a significant disconnect between people and the natural world," Grace says. "I'm in the business of connecting people to nature."

Based on some of the previous fights over national parks, the fact that Grace even agreed to a phone call was surprising. Because national parks are indeed often controversial. They invariably require the federal government to take possession of tens of thousands of acres of land, a red flag for the often rural communities nearby. Indeed, locals can lose free access to lands where they previously hunted and recreated, while being inundated with tourists. In a later conversation, Grace grew worried that people would wrongly believe the "Hawk Mountain as a national park" idea originated from or is being supported by the sanctuary. I told him I'd do all that I could to dispel that notion, but also that millions of Americans believe reptile aliens in disguise run our country, and I'm not sure what you do about a thing like that.

It's important to clarify that we're indeed talking about a Hawk Mountain National Park, as in capital N and capital P. Technically, the U.S. National Park Service manages 431 "units" sporting a plethora of designations and titles, such as Independence National Historical Park in Old City and Valley Forge National Historical Park. Undoubtedly, many of these places are more beautiful and interesting than some full-blown "national parks." As Grace points out, the U.S. Department of the Interior, under which the NPS falls, already named Hawk Mountain a National Natural Landmark in the 1960s, and added it to the National Register of Historic Places in 2022.

With all due respect, these places aren't on the scratch-off maps that adorn the walls of outdoor aficionados across the country. The travel time from Philadelphia to Congaree is about the same as it is to Allegheny National Forest, a half-million-acre natural wonderland in Northwest Pennsylvania that could probably also be a national park. And as illogical as it may be, there truly isn't much that separates a national park from other units besides a certain public romanticism: I prioritize visiting national parks, and so do many others. Redesignating an existing park as a national park (sometimes constituting little more than a name change) can increase visitation by at least 21 percent, according to a 2018 study.

Such foot traffic is a double-edged sword. Anyone who ever lost a favorite local dive bar to its own success understands the downsides of publicity. The stakes are even higher in parks, where managers often struggle to both inspire public appreciation for landscapes and protect those landscapes from the great bison-taunting, woods-fornicating, let's-cook-a-chicken-in-the-hot-spring masses.

Ask locals, though, and some are surprisingly open to the idea of a Hawk Mountain National Park.

In the early days of the pandemic, with Philly and NYC shuttered, Hamburg Police Chief Anthony Kuklinski says, his town at the foot of Hawk Mountain struggled with a sudden surge of city slickers. The borough's water authority owns a few thousand acres on the mountain's southern slope adjacent to the sanctuary, which the town protects as a drinking water source. In normal times, Hamburg allows visitors to use a reservoir parking lot to start a hike to the Pinnacle, a popular rocky outcropping that offers superb views of the surrounding ridge-and-valley landscape. But during the heyday of COVID, they had to shut it all down.

"We wound up with around 25,000 visitors a week out there. It was inhibiting [employees] from being able to access facilities," Kuklinski says. "We chained it off, we shut it down, and put it out to the public that this is not a place you need to be."

Still, Kuklinski is willing to entertain the idea of a national park. A native of Roxborough by way of Norristown, Kuklinski says he's seen the march of development over the past several decades along the 422 corridor in Montgomery County. With people priced out of such areas and significant highway expansion in northern Berks County, in-creased development seems to be coming for the area either way. Sure, a national park designation might add to the fracas, he says, but the borough is experienced in working with state agencies to police the area, and in fact already deeded the feds the property for the Appalachian Trail where it cuts through its lands. Later Kuklinski, unprompted, texts me several photos of himself proudly hiking on Hawk Mountain.

Hamburg's mayor, George Holmes, also thinks a national park could be possible. Holmes says he believes national parks have been a "good thing for our country" and that he's always happy to take federal money, although he understands that park designations often face justifiable local opposition and need to be fully thought through.

Like Kuklinski, Holmes has family roots in Philadelphia. But he grew up in Carbon County, a little slice of former coal country where tourist-happy Jim Thorpe helps buttress an otherwise brutal post-coal economy.

Given these perspectives, Holmes copped to being perhaps a tad more development-friendly than the average Hamburger. In fact, his wife owns a bed-and-breakfast in town, and Holmes believes it's the area's natural assets that are its best draw. And, he says, there's some risk of losing them as development pushes ahead. Maybe a park would be a way to actually develop on their terms.

"When you live in a place you don't see it as much. But when you come from the outside and see all the value in front of you, you really appreciate it," Holmes says. "We try to spread the good word here. That you've got some gems here, but you need to do some things to keep it that way."

Thomas Frawley, a longtime passenger rail professional, heads up the nascent Schuylkill River Passenger Rail Authority, an intergovernmental effort to restore service between Philadelphia and Reading. Buoyed by a variety of state and federal funding sources, Frawley now speaks in "when not if" terminology, and predicts that before the decade is out, several trains a day will shuttle back and forth between the two cities for the first time in a generation.

Many details remain to be determined, but early planning documents suggest the trains could make a run from 30th Street Station to downtown Reading in about 90 minutes, with stops along the way in Phoenixville and Pottstown, and potentially also North Philadelphia, Conshohocken, and Norristown. Eventually, Frawley aims to connect the service to New York City, offering a one-seat ride from the Big Apple to all of these towns and back.

Tantalizingly, there is already an existing short-line railroad in Reading that, a few times a month, shuttles passengers on an old-timey train ride from the outskirts of the city to a stop in Port Clinton, a small village neighboring Hamburg at the foot of Hawk Mountain, before chugging along to Jim Thorpe. Port Clinton is right in the middle of the largest continuously forested area in Southeastern Pennsylvania, nestled perfectly amid state-owned game lands, a state forest, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, and private lands including those in Hamburg. All told there are somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 acres of natural landscapes surrounding Port Clinton, with dozens of existing miles of popular trails and backcountry roads already used for hiking, backpacking, camping, birdwatching, snowmobiling, and hunting. The Appalachian Trail passes through east to west, and cutting north to south is the Schuylkill River and its bike and water trail, offering paddling and fishing.

You don't have to squint very hard to see visitors to America's newest national park boarding trains in New York, Philadelphia, and Phoenixville and within just a few hours arriving at the front door of Appalachia. Hotels and breweries in Reading, Hamburg, and Port Clinton would cater to the crowds before they take a short ride on a boutique train to the park, a trip through space and time that also cuts down on local vehicle congestion and its climate-changing emissions.

At the mountain, a bounty of recreational opportunities await. When visitors step off the train, the Appalachian Trail would sit just 400 feet away, and biking and paddling along the Schuylkill less than a quarter-mile. For the die-hards, a 10-mile jaunt to the Pinnacle awaits, and for families, a 10-minute shuttle ride would connect to Hawk Mountain Sanctuary and its kid-friendly programming and trails. All visitors could learn the lessons of conservation, the impact of climate change and other pollution on continent-hopping raptors, and the legacy of trailblazers like Rosalie Edge.

Heather Zimmerman, president of Pennsylvania's Americana Region, the official name of Berks County's visitors bureau, says she believes the rail-to-Hawk combination would be a powerful draw to a county that has taken a back seat to tourist-happy neighbors such as Lancaster's Amish country since the decline of Reading's previously renowned shopping outlets. Zimmerman notes that it's the county's recreational amenities that now sit near the top of its most popular attractions.

"I don't know of any place in our area more deserving than Hawk Mountain. ... I think it would be a fantastic opportunity," Zimmerman says. "What that would do for our county is just further increase our level of exposure to people who are interested in that type of thing."

Unfortunately for those who love the idea of Pennsylvania getting a national park, not everyone is in fact interested in that type of thing.

"No National Park entered the waiting room."

The directness of the message on my Zoom screen made me pause to laugh before I admitted Sandy Hull into the call.

For the past several years Hull, a resident of Layton, New Jersey, has fought with everything she has against a serious effort to turn the Delaware Water Gap National Recreational Area in Northeastern Pennsylvania into a full-fledged national park.

"It looks good on paper," Hull says. "But when you take any kind of a beautiful, perfect, pristine area [and make it a national park], you're looking at some kind of negative impact."

Anyone who's been to the Water Gap and is familiar with the fight can tell you the preposterousness of the idea that Hawk will ever become a national park. The Water Gap is already a federally controlled, 70,000-acre outdoor paradise that objectively has better national park credentials than Hawk Mountain, and maybe anywhere else in Pennsylvania. That an attempt to actually make it into one currently appears dead in the water speaks volumes.

The push began several years ago when John Donahue, the park's former superintendent for 14 years and now executive director of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, had the same notion for the Water Gap that I had for Hawk Mountain. The Water Gap has great natural and recreational assets and is near to population centers, and thus is a more than worthy candidate to help green a national park desert east of the Mississippi.

"The resources speak for themselves. ... [I]t's a complex of incredibly unique and wonderful things that should be recognized at the national level," Donahue says, ticking off the Appalachian Trail, the 9/11 Trail, Kittatinny Ridge, the scenic Delaware River, and a millennia-long human history.

As an existing NPS unit, Donahue points out, the Water Gap really doesn't need much besides congressional approval and a name change to turn full national park. Again, one wonders at first blush, Who could possibly say no?

Well, Hull. And a whole lot of other people.

The politics around the Water Gap are somewhat complicated, but in the end, quite simple. One key opposing constituency is hunters, both official rod-and-gun organizations and the John Doe-hunters who make up their membership. Typically, national parks don't allow hunting, which is a nonstarter for those who don't want to lose access to one green acre of hunting grounds, let alone tens of thousands. Also opposed is the Turtle Clan of the Ramapough Lenape Nation, whose chief called the national park idea "destructive" out of concern that increased visitation would degrade landscapes they hold sacred.

But perhaps most damningly opposed are the Water Gap's regular visitors -- some locals like Hull, some not -- who fear the potential for park fees in areas currently free to access, and also that overcrowding will place too much pressure on the land, roads, and towns.

As Hull notes, the National Park Service nationwide faces a $22 billion backlog of deferred maintenance. She believes it implausible that the Water Gap, already an extremely popular destination, can take something like a 21 percent increase in visitation without extra funding and somehow stand to benefit.

"Where are they going to park? Where are they going to pee? Where are they going to eat their lunch?" she asks. "National parks are being what they call 'visited to death.'"

Donahue files all of this under "misinformation." His proposal calls for the creation of a "national park and preserve" -- a hybrid model used successfully to win support for New River Gorge in West Virginia, as it allows for hunting to continue on the vast majority of acreage. He also notes that the NPS has the discretion to charge access fees or not: Many parks, especially those with several points of ingress and egress like the Water Gap, do not. And under the park's current status, the NPS is still on the hook to care for some bridges that run through it. He thinks the extra attention a national park designation would bring would help advocate for more resources.

Donahue believes the opposition is mostly linked to the Water Gap's original sin, when the federal government kicked out some 15,000 residents in the 1960s to create the planned Tocks Island dam and reservoir, to be used for flood control, hydropower, and drinking water. But the project never came to be -- the land instead went to the national recreation area, and there's still bad blood over the misdirect a half-century later.

Regardless of who's right or wrong, it sure looks like Hull's side is winning. Over the past several years, the No National Park movement has worked the political machinery, both behind closed doors and in public, packing meetings and operating a popular website and Facebook page. Some key figures who originally favored the proposal wilted in the heat of the opposition and reversed course, including influential groups like the New Jersey Sierra Club. Most significantly, politicians (like Democratic New Jersey Congressman Josh Gottheimer) -- who ultimately hold the fate of such plans in their hands -- have come out against it. ("We flipped him," Hull says plainly.)

Yet Donahue holds on.

"It's a great idea, and ideas don't really go away," he says. "It just takes time to mature and ripen."

Whether that makes Donahue Nostra­damus or Don Quixote remains to be seen.

As I continued to chase down my own national park pipe dream, I suddenly started­ feeling a bit of the burn myself.

When I first started asking around, I got word from a friend of a friend that the Sha­piro­ administration was generally supportive­ of the idea of a national park in Pennsylvania and that I should reach out to the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which manages state parks. This really wasn't any big reveal. After all, DCNR had previously come out publicly in favor of the Water Gap proposal. DCNR scheduled me for an interview with Secretary Cindy Dunn, the head of the department, but when the time came, the call never arrived. It'd been nixed over the concern that this piece's focus on Hawk Mountain was too specific (i.e., potentially controversial). Turns out it was the wrong tree to bark up anyway -- the Pennsylvania Game Commission, a separate state entity, actually controls the state game lands that would be needed to make Hawk Mountain a national park, and the commission is protective of its holdings.

It was a similar story with the National Park Service. After another source suggested I reach out to director Charles Sams III, his communications staff initially responded. But once I laid my cards on the table, they provided basic boilerplate, and did not engage on Hawk-specific questions.

Not that any of this was surprising or even unjustifiable. The practical upside to engaging is hard to see, and the downside is easy: a bunch of pissed-off hunters and locals, each with a vote, and each capable of using it for the other candidate.

The gut punch instead came from Grace. In late September I began seeking a second interview with the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary president to talk over what I'd come up with since we last spoke. There were new ideas and questions to run by him. Did he know there's a precedent for a private entity like Hawk to hold on to its lands even if a new national park surrounded it? What did he think of the train potential? Did he think a national park could ever actually happen? After several emails and a call went unanswered, I feared he too had moved away from it.

Unexpectedly, a few days later he did ring me back. But the tone had changed from our first conversation. The sanctuary has a board and members he has to answer to, Grace said. He's worked in conservation for the better part of a career now, and the sanctuary has worked diligently with nearby communities to further its mission and protect more acreage. In short, he too loves big conversations about big ideas to connect more people with the great outdoors. But he knows how these things can go, and nothing here seemed to be worth the risk of really getting into it.

"I would hate for the sanctuary to get embroiled in controversy. Someone will read it and the rumor on the road will be 'Hawk Mountain is trying to establish a national park, they're getting too big for their britches,'" Grace said.

And yet, the idea didn't quite die. Grace continued to entertain me on the phone for another half-hour. When I told him I was visiting the mountain the next day to witness the wonder of the fall raptor migration, he told me he might join me on the north lookout to talk some more.

Turns out Grace chose biking over hiking the following morning. But at the rocky outcrop of the lookout there were many of the other usual suspects. A trio of high schoolers from Montgomery County, first time on the mountain, asked me for trail recommendations. Families with young children sat quietly as red-tailed hawks and bald eagles came soaring down the ridge, identified by Hawk Mountain's own owl-eyed spotters, who'd call out the species for visitors while keeping count in their logbooks.

After about an hour, I spoke to an older man a few rocks away, who wore a spiffy wool shirt and sported a white-and-brown feather in the band of his fedora. His name was Brian, and he'd lived at the foot of the mountain most of his life, volunteering at the sanctuary for nearly half a century and teaching environmental science at a nearby high school. You don't get more local than that, and I decided it was time to take my medicine. I told him I was working on a story about national parks in Pennsylvania, and asked what he thought about Hawk Mountain as a candidate.

"Sure," he said, raising his right hand to point at the other rocky outcropping of the Pinnacle, about four miles away, then sweeping it toward our location, tracing the exact expanse of land I originally had in mind for America's 64th national park. "That would about get the job done," he added.

My eyebrows arching with incredulity, I looked back to the sky at the next hawk passing by, and wondered.